


Give to Me Your Heart (and I’ll Give to You My Gift)

by nickelsandcoats



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-19
Updated: 2011-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-21 13:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelsandcoats/pseuds/nickelsandcoats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was six, Sherlock wished upon a falling star. He never expected his wish to come true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give to Me Your Heart (and I’ll Give to You My Gift)

**Author's Note:**

> For [mesmiranda’s](http://www.mesmiranda.dreamwidth.org) prompt [here](http://nickelsandcoats.livejournal.com/122267.html) at my shuffle meme post. Feel free to prompt me something there!
> 
> Her choice was #87, which ended up being “Amy’s Starless Life” from the _Doctor Who: Season Five_ soundtrack by Murray Gold.

  
Sherlock slipped out of the back door and found John sitting, hugging the knees drawn up to his chest, chin resting on the denim, on the small concrete patio. He paused in the doorway for a moment, drinking in the sight of his lover. John was staring straight ahead, gaze locked on the small copse of trees in the distance.

Sherlock padded over and sat next to him, leaning briefly into his warmth. They sat in a companionable silence until John finally blinked and looked over at Sherlock. The starlight caught in John’s eyes and turned them silver. Sherlock shivered a bit. _He looks like a faerie, caught here and bound in starlight,_ Sherlock thought as he blinked and glanced away, a little uncomfortable with the unusual intensity of John’s gaze.

“Have you ever wished upon a star, Sherlock?”

Sherlock blinked again and forced himself to meet John’s oddly silvered gaze. If he looked hard enough, Sherlock thought, he could almost swear he saw something… _else_ , something _other_ lurking in the back of John’s eyes. But John was waiting for his answer, a small frown on his face, and Sherlock drew himself back into the present and the moment was lost.

“I⎯” He stopped, frowning. “I don’t remember.” This was interesting. He always remembered. Why couldn’t he remember this?

John just smiled at him, eyes hooded and dark again.

Abruptly, he stood up, dusting off his denims and reaching a hand down to Sherlock. “Come on.”

Sherlock reached up and took John’s hand, fingers automatically curling around John’s slightly thicker ones. “Where are we going?” he asked as John pulled him in the direction of the copse of trees.

John just gave him another mysterious smile and kept to his unwavering path, pace steady and measured. Once they reached the edge of the forest, Sherlock realised, now that they were on top of it, John paused and looked at him, measuring Sherlock’s reaction.

Sherlock, for his part, was a little intimidated by the closeness of the trees. He’d never been particularly fond of close, dark spaces, and seeing the mammoth trees towering over him, leaves silver in the moonlight, branches whispering in the breeze, made him shiver involuntarily.

John noticed and drew closer. Sherlock’s eyes remained locked on the trees.

“Do you trust me, Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s gaze snapped back to him. “Of course.”

“Then you know I’ll keep you safe.”

Now Sherlock smiled. “Always.” And he knew it, he had always known it. The feeling had burst into his chest from the moment he saw John in Bart’s’ labs a year ago, unexplained, unbidden, but once it had settled there, it had never left. Sherlock, never one to give up on a mystery, had tried to figure out what it was about John that engendered such a immediate feeling of safety, warmth, home, but he had never solved the mystery. Eventually, he put it down to just being a part of John and let it be. But every once in a while, he pulled out the puzzle of John Watson and worried it over, like one would worry at a loose tooth.

John’s smile then was dazzling as he held out his hand invitingly. Without hesitation, Sherlock placed his hand in it and let John lead him into the forest.

  
They walked through the forest hand-in-hand, John in the lead, hands still tightly clasped together. They didn’t stumble or trip on a root, and Sherlock, after several minutes of walking as if they were on a London street in the middle of the day and not in the middle of a rather dense forest in the dark, finally asked, “How are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Nothing.” Sherlock frowned and kept pace, clasping John’s hand tightly.

“Almost there,” John said after another little while. The trees were thinning out, more moonlight peeking through the less dense canopy.

Finally, John stopped at the edge of a small clearing. He looked around himself and then took a few tentative steps forward, dropping Sherlock’s hand. John walked slowly and deliberately into the middle of the clearing, turned a small circle while staring up at the heavens, and then, smiling gently, sank down onto the grass. He glanced over at Sherlock, who was waiting still and silent where John had left him, and patted the ground next to his hip.

“Come and have a lie down,” John said, leaning back to rest on his elbows, legs stretched out in front of him. One of his shoelaces was untied.

Sherlock crossed over to him and sat down slowly, his hackles on edge. There was _something_ in the air here, something he couldn’t quite define. John looked brighter than he ever had seen him, and it was both breathtaking and slightly disturbing.

John laid flat on his back and stared at the stars, waiting for Sherlock to copy him. Once Sherlock’s head was lying next to his, John reached over and groped about until he had taken hold of Sherlock’s hand and laid his own over it.

“Do you feel it? You do, don’t you?”

Sherlock nodded, then, realising John couldn’t see him, whispered, “Yes. John, what is it?”

John turned his head so he was looking at Sherlock’s face in profile. Sherlock started to move to mirror him, but John stopped him with a soft, “Don’t. Just look at them. Aren’t they beautiful?”

“Yes,” Sherlock licked his lips nervously. “I’ve never seen so many stars before.”

John smiled a bit sadly. “It’s hard to see them in London. It’s why I wanted you to come home with me, so you could see them as I did when I was a little boy. I’m so glad you came with me⎯I miss the stars when we’re in London.”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitched as he thought about John as a little boy, running out to this clearing and watching the stars come out, one by one overhead.

John let him contemplate the stars for long moments before he finally took a deep breath and said, in a whisper barely loud enough to be heard over the branches and leaves twisting in the breeze, “I was found here, long ago. Harry found me and brought me back to Mum and Dad; only they weren’t really Mum and Dad for a long time to me.”

Sherlock twisted his head to stare into John’s eyes. They were that odd silvery colour again, and he found that he couldn’t tear his gaze away as John asked him softly, “Did you ever wish upon a falling star, Sherlock?”

Sherlock gasped. He _remembered._ He sat up, staring down into John’s face as the memory exploded into life behind his eyes.

He had spotted his first and only falling star when he was very young, only six, and he had made a wish, never once believing that it would come true. Even at six, he knew that he was different, and that wishes never came true for people like him.

“What did you wish for, Sherlock?” John was propped on one elbow, hand digging into the grass so hard that he was nearly ripping it out. “Do you remember what you wished for?”

“I wished for a friend, for someone who would love me just the way I was, no matter what. I was six, and I was so lonely. I couldn’t face the thought of living alone for the rest of my life even then, and so when I saw that falling star, I wished for that.”

John reached up and brushed away a tear that had fallen, completely without Sherlock’s knowledge, onto his cheek. The tear sat suspended on John’s index finger, glinting silver in the moonlight.

“What if I told you that wishes come true?”

“They never come true. That’s the meaning of a wish.”

John smiled. “Yours did.”

Sherlock stared at him.

“You wished on me. I fell, and you saw me and wished on me when you were six years old. And when I fell, Harry came to collect me. She had been told where to find me; she’s one of my kind, too. She is Mum’s wish. And when Harry came to find me, I knew only two things: one, that I had been given a wish, and two, that I had to find the person who wished for me and give them what they needed.”

John paused and sat up fully, turning to face Sherlock. “I’m sorry that it took me so long to find you.”

“John⎯I, I don’t believe it. This can’t be real. _You_ can’t be real.”

John reached out and grabbed Sherlock’s hand, pressing it to his chest. Sherlock could feel John’s heart thundering under his palm. “Doesn’t this feel real to you?”

Sherlock nodded dumbly.

“You made me, Sherlock. When you made your wish, you turned me into what you needed. That’s what my kind do when we fall. We seek someone who needs us, fall, and when they make their wish on us, we change into what they need.

“And what you needed was me. So here I am.” John looked up into Sherlock’s disbelieving gaze. “Haven’t you wondered why we got along like we’d known each other our entire lives even from the moment we met? That’s why, Sherlock. You asked for something you thought you’d never find, and my kind heard you and gave it to you.”

Sherlock blinked back another tear.

John gently cupped his cheek. “You deserve me, Sherlock, else I never would have chosen to fall and been sent to you. I answered your wish of my own free will, because I loved you from the moment you made that wish.”

John leaned up and kissed him gently. Sherlock pulled back after a moment, dazed. He peered into John’s eyes, now glowing brightly silver in the fading moonlight. Behind his eyes, Sherlock could see John’s other self, the wild, barely tamed force that lived in his veins, waiting to uncoil itself. “Thank you,” Sherlock breathed, kissing John deeply. John heard everything that was meant in those two simple words and let himself go, shedding his flesh for a moment and letting his true nature illuminate the clearing. Sherlock cupped a palmful of light and laughed as John’s true self penetrated every pore, lighting Sherlock from within.

Finally, what seemed like an hour but was really only a few minutes later, John coalesced into his human shape, drawing his flesh around himself like a cloak. Only his eyes gave away his true nature as they glowed.

John met Sherlock’s grin and kissed him again. “I can’t do that all the time,” he said regretfully. “But if we come here again, I can change back for you, if you want me to,” he added shyly.

“Oh, God, yes,” Sherlock said fervently. John laughed brightly.

“Oh!” John exclaimed, digging about in his pocket. He pulled out a small stone that shone as brightly as he had in his true form. He held it out to Sherlock, who stretched his hand over it, not quite touching it.

“What is it, John?”

John swallowed, unexpectedly nervous. “I thought that since I already had your heart, and you’ve had my figurative one for a while now, I should give you my literal one, too.”

He placed the rock in Sherlock’s palm. Sherlock gently cradled the small object, peering at it curiously. The light pulsed gently in time with John’s heartbeats.

“Keep it close,” John whispered, mesmerised by the sight he thought he might not ever see, “for you carry my heart always. You’ve given me my wish now, too.”

Sherlock looked up and smiled, before leaning in and kissing John once more, carefully balancing the little rock between them. “Always, John. Never doubt that.”

“Never,” John breathed as the little rock glowed brightly enough to illuminate the clearing.

  



End file.
